Its because in the Mage revamp Blizzard Devs continued to ignore the major Mage issues. Mages are great at running away, but running away doesn’t clear things, doesn’t kill mobs, doesn’t give loot.
You cant snare or control mobs for more than 1 cast, and if its a group, youre likely dead or have to run. Mages don’t have the defenses to deal with mobs beating on them like EVERY other class has, mages don’t have self heals that can be used on repeat.
Mages main CC (Polymorph) still HEALS the target, something no other CC does.
Basically mages are not ment for solo content if there is any difficulty.
As others have stated they can* be done, but its really slow especially compared to other classes (maybe resto druid is worse), and unlike every other class you’ll need to wait for CDs and use almost all your CDs everytime.
We used to have different mage armor and dampen magic but it’s all gone now, I’ve managed to do up to lvl 9 delves with level 33 Brann, frost is the only viable spec for this thou. Our biggest issue is the lack of self healing, we had that solved with Leech but they totally gutted the stat and stacking it gives you 6% at best.
You either lack the gear, Brann’s levels or just a skill issue, I’ve done a 120m boss in Mycomancer cavern and got him down to 40m, my main issue has been gear, I need more item level (And Mastery) to do a level 10 delve as frost mage, the rest is just using all of your toolkit properly.
Frost is the way to go. Cold snap and constant slows make it the only class to do delves in. I was struggling with arcane, the nerfs didnt help. Switched to frost and don’t regret it one bit.
I was thinking of doing fire, but frost is doing the job.
I completed tier 8 on my Frost Mage right after nerf to Brann and before he was buffed back. Several tips (for all specs, not just Frost):
- Mirror Images + Mass Barrier is your temporary “tank pet” - they hold aggro for decent amount of time for you to kill packs and some elites.
- You can keep Time Warp for final boss and use against him. It also resets if you die to boss and you can use it again.
- You can use potions in delves so Algari Healing Potion can both heal you to full and allow to effectively use Alter Time at full health again.
- Brann healer can be helpful if you struggle with surviving and don’t mind longer clearing time - he dispels you, heals via potion drops and can summon pets that temporary distract enemies (dinosaur and monkey).
- Though many people prefer Shimmer, Ice Floes can be helpful in delves - you can blink roots and stuns, run while casting (which helps kite the boss while still doing damage) without requring your teleport for that and most importantly - Blink CD is much shorter than Shimmer, so you get much more ports with Blink if fight is prolonged.
its fine until you get to a boss and literally none of your cc works on them.
Yes, final boss can become biggest issue in higher tier delves, especially if it is in limited area (like the giant eel in one of underwater delves). However, there are still workarounds to bosses being immune to your crowd control like rotating your defensives and using them in a way that whenever one of them expires you should have another off-cooldown:
- Start battle with Mirror Images + Water Elemental (if Frost) + Mass Barrier to shield them all. Bosses would spend time killing images and for some reason enjoy killing your Water Elemental first and shields to them all make them tankier and give you time for initial burst.
- After Images die you need to use Alter Time. Your goal is to use it early to reset its cooldown at least once in encounter and align with period of having high health (after Ice Block with Cryo Freeze heal or Algari Healing Potion).
- After Alter Time you need to use your Barrier (which should be off-cooldown since you should initially cover self and summons with Mass Barrier).
- After barrier breaks you need to actively kite and use Blink / Shimmer and Displacement for both relocation and healing. This is where Ice Floes are handy since they allow you to kite and cast separately from teleporting which you use for additional kiting.
- After you get below <50% of health you use Ice Block to heal to high health level.
- After Ice Block you use Shifting Power if needed and immediately use Barrier again (which should be off-cooldown due to Shifting Power).
- After Barrier you use Alter Time at high health (which should be off cooldown by that time).
- After Alter Time expires you kite and port around and when drop to low health you can use Algari Healing Potion.
- When you drop to low health again you should already have Barrier and Displacement off-cooldown for small healing and new absorb.
And so on.
With such principle you can often survive long enough to kill boss before you run out of defensives, especially if Brann is a healer and provides support. Main goal should be - always do damage to bosses in delves if possible. It is not possible to kite them perfectly since they are immune to CC and often have ranged attacks - your goal is to kill them faster than you would run out of defensives and Time Warp and Ice Floes (for kiting and counterattacking simultaneously) are very helpful for that.
I have this feeling my Fire mage ( firefrost ) will have to change back to Sunfury since bosses can not be cc .
If I can’t get the boss with Brann as DPS, I usually can do it after switching him to heals. Most bosses have a pretty simple cycle of attacks that keep them from constantly pounding you, and once you figure them out, aren’t super tough.
This.
Brann DPS was overnerfed, he does no damage.
If you’re a class with low sustain like mage or rogue you’re much better off taking him as healer.
No, I don’t feel this way at all. I turn Bran to healer for more consistency in hp, and take it slow. Make sure to use all abilities and realize that this is not a dungeon. It isn’t all about speed. It just needs people to slow down a little bit as they go through. I feel like these are a great way to really learn your class because you need to utilize things that you don’t need to in other content. I love using polymorph again and having it be useful for example.
I did Tier 7 Waterworks (bountiful) last night, and I had a decent time as Spellslinger Arcane. When I fought the final boss (Waxface), I got chunked twice before switching to Frostfire Frost mage. I barely squeaked out a win by placing my air purifier within blinking range of the stationary air purifier. Whenever he started charging up his uninterruptible aoe spell, I would blink to the other circle of clear air to not take as much damage. I had to use both trinkets, Time Warp, Icy Veins, Mirror Images, Alter Time (though I messed that up like normal), Ice Block, Cold Snap, Ice Block again, and a pink potion (the ones you get from disturbed earth spots). I’m worried about trying tier 8 solo. I might look for a group for that until I can get better gear. I did get a 597 belt, but it was more trouble than I expected.
I have solo’d this on T8. Set Bran to healer, save the potions for when he does Burn Out, I think that’s the AoE he does, and just using Barrier, Mass Barrier, Mirror Image etc while it is happening combined with a Bran potion is enough to keep you up. I use Alter Time, Shimmer and at times Displacement if I’m spec’d into it to keep kiting. It is doable, just have to get creative with abilities, which is why I really like this mode!
I use all the tricks until final boss. Slow, Ice block, frost nova and cone of cold seem to have no effect whatsoever so keeping the boss off of you is next to impossible. You spend so much time trying to avoid the boss that effective DPS just isn’t there. I only tried one lvl 8, Earth Crawl mines. Perhaps it’s just the mechanics of the fight requiring you to get to the middle to effectively dodge the mine carts. It forces you to run through him. Brahn used to hold agro but no longer. I tried him as DPS and heals. As dps it was even worse. As a healer he would toss the health pots too far away much of the time.
I feel like delves are fine for mages atm. I am currently doing tier 8’s at ilv 604. Which is the right lv for me. The delve guide puts tier 8 at ilv 600 plus and tier 9 at 610 plus. Delves are not over challenging but can be tedious. You have to be a mage on the go. I don’t think you can do delves as fire spec. I am shocked arcane can do them. As frost, the delves are much easier - at least from my perspective. Mob health is still a little high. The time for me to finish a tier 8 is usually about 20 to 35 minutes depending on what i have to deal with.
I’m comfortably doing T8s as a Fire Mage. Ilvl 607. I only die when I get lazy or try to get Bran to put down the campfire so I can get the 5% int buff from it.
Healer Brann, manage his pots, keep moving, stay out of the bad. Quickwick Candlestick macroed to Combustion. Sunfire, Unleashed Inferno with Spontaneous Combustion. No Flamestrikes or Living Bomb.
On the Boss I use all my charges of Phoenix and Fire Blast, then pop out Mirror Images and Combust. Use Shifting Power to get back charges of things. Use them. Around then Combustion will be back up. Use it. Boss should be about dead by then or soon after. Almost never stop moving. Try to keep Dwarven Medicine at 4 stacks as much as possible.
I solo T8 delves with my Fire mage that isn’t even avg ilvl 600.
It’s close now though.d
Duo is a joke it’s so easy. Why would i do m+ with delves like this unless I’m out of keys and bored?
can you make brann to put down campfire? or it’s random
i have cleared a few t8 and 1 t9 as arcane mage, it’s certainly doable, just take it slow, and stay alive first, dps 2nd, can’t burst boss down for sure
He tends to put one down if your health is low enough as a fight finishes. He is not as quick or consistent in doing so as he was prior to the rounds of adjustments they made.
I was surprised to see this thread still being active but then I skimmed through it I realized all the latest posts are people saying that they have no problem doing delves now… well no 
, lol!
That’s because when the thread was first made delves were horribly tuned and Brann was completely bugged. In the week following the outcry over the messy launch of delves Blizzard released multiple hotfixes literally every single day until they finally got it to a manageable state.
Mages are still one of the worst, if not the worst, classes to do solo content with and that includes delves but at this stage if you are still struggling with T8s you’re either undergeared or it’s a skill issue because the tuning has been in a decent spot for almost a week now. Or alternatively you’re a brand new mage player because you only play the fotm meta and haven’t gotten a good grasp on Sunfury Arcane yet.